Wednesday, July 22, 2015

IndyCar Goes FULL IndyCar, Predictably

Why hello there, typical NUVO reader – have you been keeping up with how IndyCar just IndyCar’d themselves in their foot yesterday … and then also their lungs and wallet and hard-earned momentum, murdering them all real good? No? Hello???

[entire NUVO audience disappears into their cubicles, leaving only contrails of panic and pot smoke]

I keep forgetting that it is 2015 and not 1983 and open-wheel racing in America is basically Greco-Roman wrestling on wheels now: few know it exists, maybe two or zero NUVO readers do. Okay, from the top, you newbs:

IndyCar is a racing series – an auto-racing series where racecar drivers try to win races. In fact, one of their races is the Indy 500! (You can bike to it now, it is very fun!!) However, a great deal more of their races are not the Indy 500. They are the Detroit Something-or-Other and the Texas Car Race* (*not the official name, probably) and there was a race in “Fontana,” I think – although that might have been a typo. (Montana, perhaps?)

Anywho, these other races not named the "Indy 500" do not generate much of a t.v. audience and that has been a problem for quite some time. Except here recently they HAVE started doing pretty great on the t.v., relatively speaking!! That is because there have been some hotly contested races and some of the drivers have been hopping out of their cars to knuckle-up to their foes and maybe stab them in the spleen(?), all pissed-off and using dirty language and carrying on like real sports people tend to do, at all times, since forever. It’s been a positive departure from years past when IndyCar drivers have been notoriously/exceedingly polite and boring to each other, making the people not-watching at home very sleepy. No, IndyCar has been producing drama of late! CONFLICT!! It was all very intriguing and entertaining! Even the IndyCar-allergic masses took notice and began watching for once. Improved television ratings confirmed this.

The Verizon IndyCar Series has informed its competitors of a new rule that could seriously impact the ability for drivers and team principals to speak candidly.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Series boss Mark Miles promised changes would be forthcoming after the Fontana oval race where members of the IndyCar paddock spoke out against the rules that produced 500 harrowing miles of racing, and with further comments criticizing the short IndyCar schedule and other aspects of the series, a new rule has been produced that could be interpreted as a gag order.

You know what else "could be interpreted as a gag order?" A gag order.

With a set of guidelines that demands respect and courtesy and prohibits criticism of officials, competitors, the rules, how those rules are used, the schedule, sponsors, ABC and NBC, or diminishes an intangible like “public confidence of the sport,” the series has apparently limited its paddock to answers that are neutral or positive.

Yes, because the Lakers/Celtics rivalry of the '80s was all about “respect and courtesy” and not at all about Kurt Rambis clothes-lining anyone he saw wearing the color green, even babies and the elderly. Oh, well. The path back to Zero-Point-Whatever Ratingsville is paved with respect and courtesy and gag orders. It was fun while it lasted. :(